More Easter Chocolate!

image from here

After ordering my daughter's Easter Eggs online the other week, I went shopping for our eggs at Darrell Lea. I had been chatting to a friend who was planning to buy Australian made eggs this year and finding it difficult to actually find many. Most of the supermarkets etc don't have many made in Australia and if they are, the ingredients are often imported. We talked about Darrell Lea as an option, so I decided to buy our Easter chocolates there.

I had a good look around the store trying to work out what to buy and found that they have a dairy/nut/gluten free range (and egg free of course - eggs don't normally get used in regular chocolate). I decided to buy a pack of these Easter Bunnies since we are going to a park event soon that will involve an egg hunt and I want to have enough substitutes for her. At only $8.69 for 12, that's pretty great. Plus being individually wrapped really helps - I can keep one in my handbag just in case and I gave one to preschool in case someone was going to give out eggs etc. They also aren't that 'mini' but more generous. So that's pretty cool.

It's a shame there were no actual eggs (I find bunnies a bit tricky to help kids get the real meaning of Easter. We can talk about new life with eggs, but rabbits...?), but these and a larger rice crackle bunny are still great to be able to get without shopping online and to know you are buying Australian-made.

Oh and my daughter has already tried one (Mummy caved! Rare but true!) and loved it.

Product Deletions

Here is an excerpt from Allergy Train's latest newsletter about product deletions. I have previously recommended the Millet Rings and Mrs Robens Tortilla mix so it's a bit sad that they won't be produced anymore.

"Product Deletions

There are a couple of products that have disappeared in the last few months and i just wanted to let you know what has happened to them. 

Eskal Marshmellows - Unfortunately our supplier had the wrong shipment of marshmellows arrive. They received pink and white instead of plain white. We do not yet have a time frame on when these will be back.  

Ecor Rice and Millet Rings - these have been deleted by the manufacturer and we can no longer get them. This is very sad news for many of our customers who's kids loved them for breakfast. If you hear about an alternative product that may be a suitable replacement for these, please let us know and we will do our best to get hold of them.  

Angel Foods Meringue and Marshmellow Mixes - these have been deleted and are no longer available. We have a few meringue mixes left, but no marshmellow.

    
Mrs Robens - The manufacturer closed it's doors last year and last we heard the potential buyer was still talking to their bank so it looks like these may not be back any time soon if at all, which is a real shame. We loved their tortilla and pie mixes at our place."

We have ordered our Easter Chocolate this year from The Cruelty Free Shop and our daughter will enjoy a Moo Free Easter Egg and some Bonvita Rice Milk Mini Half Eggs as we remember what Jesus did for us on the cross and how he's alive again. Happy Easter!

Online and allergen-free in WA

screen shot taken from here

 We have recently moved to Western Australia which means that a lot of the online stores I was buying from now have prohibitive shipping costs. So I googled where to buy allergy free foods in Perth and came across this website - Allergy Tots. They don't have a huge range of products but they do have what I am looking for - a dairy free Easter Egg for our little Miss. So I have emailed to reserve an egg for her and can now feel less guilty about shopping for Easter Eggs for us too! Now to locate some mini Easter Eggs like what we had last year.

Absolute winner of a chocolate cake

Photo from here

I bought this cake mix in order to make little muffins for my daughter to take to her preschool for them to freeze for whenever someone has a birthday and she can't eat what is provided. I make a smaller cake with what was left over. I sprinkled pure icing sugar over the top instead of making an icing.
It was delicious! We all loved it and it was so moist and yummy that it was like eating a normal chocolate cake!

Here is their website. It is pretty easily available from certain large supermarkets.

We made the egg free option with No Egg rather than what was suggested but otherwise made it according to the instructions.

We are going to make it again for my daughter's 3rd birthday! I can't believe it is less than a month away.

A couple of products we are enjoying

Potentially the tastiest cupcake we've made.

Icing and Sprinkles certainly make it more exciting!

Just like Cheerios! Well, almost.

We purchased these from Allergy Train's website. Eggs are suggested for the cupcake mix but we just used the equivalent of No Egg.

Wheat, no wheat, wheat, no wheat

Our attempts to get our girl onto wheat continue with a current break from wheat again. It doesn't seem to be causing any allergic reactions now but she just wasn't getting better from a cold/cough that she had so we have gone off wheat again to see if she'll get better. It hasn't been an immediate response but no doubt she'll need time to get it all out of her system again. Then we'll head back to wheat but this time very, very gradually on the advice of the allergy specialist we consulted before going off it again. It is very hard to go very gradually I must say.

On the food front, we had a chicken salad this week that was made up of baby cos lettuce, baby roma tomatoes, celery chopped, carrot chopped, red capsicum sliced, butter beans and grilled chicken (adults had a caesar dressing too!) and Mr 4 declared it to be the best dinner ever! Miss 2 declared butter beans to be the best bit (I wasn't very surprised) but she consumed a lot more vegetables than she normally does. They both helped me prepare it and I think that was partly why they enjoyed eating it so much. I think the best bit was watching them make the little lettuce leaves into beds for their other vegies and gobbling it up! Fun.

I'm still not planning to blog regularly - we are expecting our 3rd child and planning a move interstate - 2 very big events really - but I will pop in every now and then :)

A break is in order

As my regular readers may have already guessed, I'm feeling the need for a bit of a break from blogging about food. So I will take some time off and reassess at the end of it. I hope this blog continues to be a resource for lots of people with food allergies.

We are currently back to wheat free because my daughter's lip started getting it's eczema again and her back was continually spotty so we are giving her body a break. Then we will start again. Probably just with irregular dinners with wheat in them rather than bread for lunch every day like we have been doing. Thankfully she hasn't put up a fuss going back onto the gluten free bread.

I hope you have a good few months.